Soldiers and police continue their presidentially authorised swoop on illegal miners and gangs with regular posts of miners, many of them foreigners, taken into custody at sites where gold bearing ore and other valuable minerals are illegally extracted and all manner of equipment confiscated.
This is not confined to the five provinces Cyril Ramaphosa specified when he made public the Operation Prosper deployment of soldiers to support police for a year during his February State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Both the SA Police Service (SAPS) and the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) use social media to keep South Africans aware of what they’re doing to stop gang violence, particularly in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces with Gauteng also part of this brief, as well as illegal mining in the Free State and North West provinces and Gauteng under the leadership of Premier Panyaza Lesufi.
Police in Mpumalanga province appear to have not noticed they didn’t earn inclusion by the Presidential security advisors and make regular inroads into illegal mining operations in the province. This has seen, among others, busts in Pilgrim’s Rest, Barberton – including a homemade refinery – and Ngodwana.
These successes appear to have passed by National Assembly (NA) Member of Parliament (MP) Erald Cloete, resulting in him putting a Parliamentary question to Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia in June. The Northern Cape parliamentarian wanted to know when the SANDF would be deployed alongside police in Barberton and Pilgrim’s Rest as these were, according to him, “hotspot areas of illegal mining”.
He was informed in a written reply “currently no specific date has been determined for the deployment of the SANDF to Pilgrim’s Rest and Barberton in Mpumalanga. The deployment of the SANDF remains focused on identified hotspots, informed by intelligence and the reported incidence of crime, and will be refocused once existing hotspots have been stabilised”.
The Cachalia reply noted further the SAPS “continues to respond to all areas requiring increased police visibility, including those affected by illegal mining activities”. Operational priorities and intelligence assessments are used to ensure effective policing in affected areas.
Limpopo is one of four provinces, along with KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape, officially not part of the Operation Prosper areas of operation (AoO) but this doesn’t mean there’s no illegal mining in Premier Phophi Ramathuba’s province.
A call for action on this front comes from Democratic Alliance (DA) provincial legislature member Jacques Smalle.
A statement has him saying: “Illegal mining in Limpopo has evolved into organised criminal activity operating with crass impunity across the province. The province now faces widespread illegal sand mining, zama-zama style gold mining operations, unlawful industrial scale chrome extraction and illegal coal mining. These activities are frequently conducted using heavy machinery, often in full view of authorities and with little fear of consequence”.
“Catch the criminals. Convict the syndicates. Clean up – restore law and order,” is his appeal to Ramathuba.
While police and soldiers report suspect arrests and confiscation, ranging from picks and shovels through to generators and homemade crushers as well as large quantities of alcohol, there has as yet – as far as can be ascertained – no court appearances in connection with either gang violence or illegal mining arrests.
National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Member of Parliament (MP), Nicholas Gotsell is keeping eyes and ears open on this aspect of the current Prosper iteration. Earlier in June he told DefenceWeb that “arrests – while a step in the right direction – mean very little if suspects are released days later, cases are struck off the roll, dockets collapse or disappear and kingpins continue operating untouched”.
“If Operation Prosper is to have real meaning, SAPS and the SANDF must demonstrate arrests are translating into successful prosecutions, convictions, asset forfeitures and dismantling of criminal syndicates – not merely temporary disruptions designed for headlines and public relations,” he said, adding “questions have and will continue to be asked in Parliament”.
Giving an example of recent arrests – but no prosecutions – the SANDF reported it in late June apprehended 53 suspects in coordinated operations across three separate operations in the Lejweleputswa District of the Free State, with Welkom its administrative seat. Members of Alpha Company, 1 Special Service Battalion, deployed under Operation Prosper, in conjunction with the South African Police Service and private mine security, arrested 27 suspects at Harmony Country Club for trespassing and possession of gold-bearing material. Of those arrested, 24 are South African citizens and four are citizens of Lesotho. In addition, 17.10 kilograms of copper cable were recovered during the operation. At St Helena 08 old mine shaft, three suspects were apprehended with suspected gold-bearing material. During a sweep at St Helena, Welkom, Bravo and Charlie Sections of Platoon 3, Alpha Company, together with the South African Police Service and private mine security, apprehended 22 undocumented Lesotho nationals. One was found in possession of an unlicensed firearm and another in possession of gold-bearing material weighing 17.5 kilograms, Second Lieutenant Sfiso Nyathi reported.
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